This guy

I’ve been wanting to blog about this one guy for some time now. Every once in a while, on my way to work, I’d pass by this bus stop and see this guy just standing there waiting ostensibly for the bus. He is a trim, clean-cut and neat guy in his 40’s, with light gray hair. He would invariably be standing there and he would play with this one metal ball, the size of skeeball. What he does with the ball is very tai-chi like, he would undulate his arms and have the ball travel up and down the length of his arms and he would have the ball travel to the tip of his hand at which point he would let it flow very gracefully to the other hand. It’s difficult to describe what he’s doing with the ball, but it requires great control, dexterity, grace and balance. Generally speaking, he allows the ball to flow down the front and the back sides of his hands and the overall effect is like the ball is dancing in the air very close to his arms and hands.

In all this time, I’ve yet to see him drop the ball. But Alas! Today, he dropped the ball! The ball then rolled into the street and he very nimbly hopped into the street to scoop it back up. Because the red light allowed me to stop right next to the bus stop, I very shamelessly indulged in voyeurism by watching the whole incident in its entirety.

The other thing I like about watching him is that, he seems so focused on what he is doing as to be completely oblivious to all the gawking passerbys, such as yours truly. He just does his own thing and exhibits very tangibly that sometimes lofty, sometimes elusive thing called “independence of spirit” so trumpeted by proud Americans. More than his skills with the ball, I hope to display that spirit more and more as my hair slowly makes the shift from black to gray.

Dr. Paul Farmer's talk

One of the things that I find fortuitous about working where I do is the wealth of opportunities to go hear interesting talks given around campus. Today was one of those blessed days when I was actually able to hear Dr. Paul Farmer, live and in person, give a presentation about the work he has been doing to deliver community-based health care modules to the very destitute in Haiti, Rwanda and other such places.

Dr. Paul Farmer did not disappoint. With his studious look but boyish voice and mannerism, he gave a very buoyant talk that was punctured with clever little jokes. You can tell this is a guy who thinks quickly and who thinks deeply. He is impassioned and he is not afraid to point out what he thinks is completely absurd or ridiculous.

This is in sharp contrast to the very measured, rational and almost banal tone that most researchers/scientists have when delivering a presentation on the protein mediated transport through cellular membrane in s. cerevisiae for instance. He has a bit of a bulldog approach to adhering to his vision of what rural healthcare should be like. And he said quite frankly that he’s not afraid to just tell patients what they need to do to get better.

Of course, there are already enough people out there singing his praises, so I think I won’t devote my entire post to just that. Judging from the size of the audience there today (I had to stand for a whole 90 minutes and if you know me, that’s asking a lot of me), he is a man widely admired and known at least through the NIH community.

Anyhow, this talk gave me a good reminder. Whatever it is that we want to do, we should pour our hearts and our souls into them. For people like Dr. Farmer, with the brains, the energy, the vision and the abilities, he can go very far with dedication to boot. With smaller, more modest people like me, with perhaps ½ the brain of his, with 1/3 the energy, with ¼ the vision and 1/5 the abilities, I can maybe at least go a third as far as he’s gone with the proper dedication and heart and single-mindedness, and that’s probably farther than I would ever go if I were just to wander aimlessly through pleasure or comfort seeking corridors. So it’s not so much that I want to go out there and save the world in typical superman fantasy-like machismo. It’s more like I want to create my own niche where I can achieve my own modest goals.

Scribbles et al.

Lately all I can think about is how to best jam in everything I want to do before medical school all within my schedule and at the same time, fulfilling all the various obligations of my multi-faceted roles within society. So far it’s not been working out too well.

I even got an organizer. I find myself compulsively making To Do lists. The problem with To Do lists is that, prioritizing them is very important. I’ve not yet mastered the art of prioritization. Therefore, I’d find myself dilly-dallying with low priority tasks like organizing my latest collection of clothing and meanwhile, forgetting to ah..well, let’s just say, neglecting some more important and pertinent tasks at hand. I’m also horribly and unrealistically ambitious. I want to swallow that elephant whole. I want to go to the gym and work out everyday. But as soon as I don’t make it to the gym one day, I am super annoyed with myself and then pretty soon, I don’t go for a week. I don’t know why it’s always a do or die for me, I guess at heart, I am a binary creature, not making enough room for the inevitable fallacies of human nature.

Sunday, I went to play tennis. It was a gorgeous day, a day you’d imagine to be the typical lovely day someone in the Great Gatsby would be able to enjoy on a lazy afternoon, it was warm, breezy, perfect for sipping lemonade and sitting out in the shade. It was however, a bit warm for tennis. So there I was, playing tennis, all the while wishing I had the wisdom to bring a little cap to protect my “southern belle” paleness. Just kidding. I am the black sheep in my family – quite literally.

So there I was playing tennis and I was conscientious about not breaking out into an all out sprint after every ball. I knew for one thing that it would be too much for my poor beating heart to exert so much effort. I proceeded to play a lazy man’s tennis. Any balls that are too much out of reach, I’d just let it go, quite contentedly. I noted philosophically that it’s not unlike my tendency and approach at life. I’m no bulldog that’s for sure. But on the other hand, I’m pleased to report that I’ve gained some measure of control and grace whenever I do make contact with the ball, and 8 times out of 10, the ball is a nice smooth shot back into the opposite court.

Today I took my folks to the airport. En route, I made an illegal left turn, mostly my fault of course, but it didn’t help that my easily excited Dad yelled, “Left light!” and caused me poor head to spin in confusion momentarily. So I gassed the pedal and proceeded to make a left turn and very narrowly missed being (I was in the path of collision too) made into Emily hotdog. We made that narrow escape and all of us suddenly had the feeling of having been through an Indiana Jones episode. It took a while for the collective nerves of the Yenstones to calm down. Then we were on our merry way again.

And so it is...

What now, can be said about the massacre that occurred this past Monday at Virginia Tech? I read an article on the New York Times about how Korean-Americans are immensely uneasy as the news of the massacre trickled out and revealed a psychotic Korean-American who was responsible for such brutality. Indeed, they should be uneasy. The American public hasn’t been known to be very kind to the colored races in general, whatever their range of colors may be. I am not surprised that bigoted white Americans will take this opportunity to let their long repressed racism rise untempered to the surface and explode in the form of expletives uttered at the Korean race, or hate mail, or property damage, or even physical violence. That’s how an emotional, unrational world operates, an eye for an eye and these people would feel properly justified to give voice to their inner bigot.

What’s more so, I am to some extent uneasy myself, wondering if strangers on the streets will take me for a Korean and randomly beat me up for an event that truly has nothing to do with me OR my race. But this isn’t an issue of race and it never should be. It’s an issue of mental illness, social isolation, deeply simmering anger and dysfunctionality. I also read in the papers about how the family is supposed to be a very nice family, helps neighbors shovel snow, etc. That’s all well and nice, but I can’t help but think, they really could have done more on their end to prevent what happened on Monday. But as someone very angrily and cogently pointed out, (see jason’s blog), it’s not exactly useful at this point to play the blame game.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those who were gunned down this Monday. I can only imagine how dark the world seems right now to those that are in mourning. I saw one picture of a grandmother gazing with forlorness at the picture of her beautiful grand-daughter, only 18 years old and now dead. As for the family of the killer, I don’t even want to imagine what they must feel now, having raised and contributed to the society their monster of a son. Yes truly, this is a tragedy that appears to lack the least bit of redemptive value.

Onward brave soldier!

Recently I learned of a phrase that I found intriguing. The term is coined “counter-factuals.” I first learned of this phrase while listening to a series of lectures on the History of the United States as presented by The Teaching Company. It’s a wonderful companion for the early morning rush hour and I highly recommend it to everyone.

In any case, the term “counter-factual” was used to denote the speculation that had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbor and enraged the roaring beast that is America, then Japan may have been able to hold on to its massive Asian empire that stretches from Korea, through many parts of China and almost all of Southeast Asia. When I consider that scenario, I do shudder for all of Asia, because it would be a vastly different world today and everyone would be speaking Japanese and all non-Japanese Asians would have been second-class citizens in the hegemonic Japanese empire. I would never have been born in Taiwan and never would have immigrated to America and never would have started my hobby of blogging and in short, I would not be here today.

Of course, that is where the “counter-factual” comes in and douses muddled heads with a splash of cold rationality. The truth is, this is mere speculation and too many events could have occurred in place of a nonexistent Pearl Harbor attack that it is simply presumptuous at best and imaginative at worst to conjecture such a scenario.

But as I tend to be moralistic in my blogging, I would venture to say that the active use of such speculations occur commonly in our everyday lives and could use a dosage of counter factual realizations. I often fantasize that had I not chosen A, B or C, perhaps I would have ended up in med school years earlier. By now, I would have been almost finishing up residencies and I would have saved my mom and dad the multiple gray hairs that they have had to spout during the course of my meandering. But true to my sheep nature and my wandering soul, meander I did until I finally meandered to where I’ve always, at the bottom of my heart, wanted to be. Yet is it true? Is my regret founded on something quite untangible, too many layers of speculation and uncertain factors? Yes, I would have to say that is possible. Had I not chosen A, B, or C, I may very well have chosen D, E or F and ended perhaps even farther away from my very original goal than I am now. I may have meandered still farther into the pastures of exploration and who knows? I could still be in Asia, teaching English, traveling with the Peace Corps, convinced myself that I should become an English teacher, worked my way through an East Asian studies PhD, ended up marrying a philosophizing hippie and traveling distant lands. Or I could decided that practically trumps all and gone back to school and got a degree in something useful and marketable, be spit back out in a couple of years and proceed to climb the corporate ladder.

All these speculations, no doubt can be boring to people unrelated to me, but I just want to demonstrate the endless possible permutations of life unfolding. This is all to say that, it is best to think of life in this manner. All that has happened was meant to be. All the choices that had been made were meant to be. Some were erroneous perhaps, but they can provide a lesson well learned. Some will prove to be beneficial in the long term, though were painful in the short run. The best thing that counter-factual has taught me is to steel myself against useless regrets and lamentations. And with this belief, hopefully I can be instilled with bright hopes for the future. The best is not what has not happened in the past. The best is what will happen in the future.

More to this life perhaps

When two or more females congregate together, invariably the topic of conversations turns to relationships and the subject of love. This has been my experience time and again with all my female friends. In fact I cannot really think of even one female friend with whom I have never discussed this topic. People talk of male bonding over beer and football, but for women, there is ever only one thing that truly glues: the subject of men.

Which brings to me to my second point and lately, a point of ire. Is it possible that we women focus too much on members of the opposite sex? What finally is the endless intrigue and fascination, what is all the to-do about these creatures? Men are just men, boys are just boys and truly, in and of themselves, they are not all THAT inexhaustibly interesting. I suppose I can chalk it up to the age old evolutionary drive in all women to establish a healthy and robust nest for her future egglings. Therefore, with so much at stake, it is endless exciting to discuss the ways to figure out what relationships are all about and what makes for successful, good, lasting relationships. As for dysfunctional relationships, well, one can’t possibly understand what is good about a “good” relationship until one thoroughly analyzes the myriad ways in which a relationship can flounder and dramatically sink to the bottom.

Really, women approach the topic of relationships with the microscopic zeal of the craziest, maddest and baddest scientists out there. They scrutinize every angle, they comb for underlying meanings, they sniff for the unsaid implications, and they concoct fantastical theses on what a man really means when he says X, because of course, he can’t possibly only mean X.

I don’t know if I can offer any true insights on the topic of relationships but I think one very cliched phrase bears repeating here. “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Lord knows life is stressful enough as it is as we juggle our career aspirations, being good friends to our group of hyperstressed female friends, fulfilling our various obligations as good daughter, good sister, good girlfriend, we really need to at some point learn to let the little things go. In other words, don’t be anal and resist the urge to psychoanalyze every thing your guy does. At least psycho-analyze something else that might be more interesting – like what is God thinking today? Yeah, the big Kahuna up there deserves some more scrutinization than I confess to giving to Him recently. But I do believe that.

I think I will make it a personal point to NOT talk about relationships every time with my various friends. Maybe we will talk about famine in Africa, the gross neglect of the Japanese government to make sufficient reparations and expression of regret over its atrocities, the latest movies, the unique style of Jack Keroauc, etc etc. With so many things under the sun, we are doing ourselves a disservice by being overly myopic about our focus.

Here’s a list of things I would like to do before I head off to boot camp in the Fall.

1. Finish editing my video of Grandpa
2. Donate like 25% of my clothes, or sell on ebay, I won’t mind the extra cash
3. Donate 50% of my books to the public library – decluttering is on my mind recently
4. Find good housing in Philly
5. Plan an awesome vacation for July
6. Read every single book I have recently checked out from the library – 10
7. Help rehaul my house’s sad little lawn, currently overrun by evil little weeds
8. Re-memorize all the countries of the world, I’ll do this every year til I’m 80
9. Mmm…more to come when I think of them

The Namesake

Saturday I went to see The Namesake, a film by Mira Nair. I came from the film with mixed feelings. Firstly, this is one of the few films that I watched that made me feel like I was watching a three-day serial in one sitting. It was like watching the third installment of LOTR, the film could have ended probably half an hour before it finally did and not be worse for the editing. That said, there are moments in the film that I really enjoyed, and I have to agree with Stephanie Zacherek of Salon.com that the two brightest jewels of the film were the parents, who came together in India and immigrated to America to begin a new life for their family.

Whenever the two of them share the screen together, the poignancy of the moment deepens and thickens. The time when Ashima locks herself in the bathroom to shed a few self-pitying tears at being scolded by her newly wed husband for shrinking his clothes at laundromat illustrated the typical domestic disagreements of any young couple. What was particularly sweet however was how the husband, immediately chastened, coaxed his wife out of the bathroom by cooing a litany of little sweet nothings, “my ashima, my crazy ashima, come out, my sweet sweet ashima.” Inspite of her tears, she starts to grin nonetheless. It was not only a realistic portrayal of a young couple, it was a glimpse into the tenderness that the two shared.

As a first generation immigrant who was raised in America however, I can empathize deeply with some of the themes of this film. I can understand feeling both ashamed and proud of one’s ethnic heritage and the jarring conflicting feelings of this duality. I can also understand seeing a person who is Caucasian and mainstream in every way and feeling like we are light years apart in terms of our life perspectives. At times, that feeling occasionally turns into outright rejection (as Gogol did to Maxine). And even as I do so, I am meanwhile sipping my Starbucks mocha latte, surfing the web and chatting on my cellphone. I am no more or no less different than I choose to think myself to be. I can also somewhat empathize how the parents must feel whenever they look at their children and see only strangers. Surely at times my own mom has looked at me in astonishment, thinking, “How on earth did I give birth to this…creature?” Because as if the generation gap isn’t a wide enough gulf, often there is a cultural gap, contributed in part by the environment I grew up in, a world vastly different from their own.

The film by Mira Nair is the film of every middle-class immigrant who has sought a new life in America. The film highlights the tension for children caught between the old and the new who are not sure, often times, which way to go. For all its good intentions, it sometimes became overly ambitious, trying to say too much at once and ending up not getting anything very clearly across. The film would have benefited from slowing down, splicing out unnecessary footage, and forming a stronger cohesive vision. Yet irregardless, it was nice for me, as a Chinese-American, to sit through a film about an Indian-American and to realize, aah yes, I can relate. I’ve been there.

Call me Emo

When I was in middle school, I once observed a feud that developed between this Asian girl and this semi-white trash girl, we will call her WT girl. It was junior high and the middle school I attended at the time wasn’t known for its stepford children. Some pretty mean kids from the ghettos of Maryland suburbia attended that school. So the feud between these two girls got intense. In the locker room, I observed as sixth or seventh grade girls surrounded this Asian girl and then dished out ugly and hurtful insults at her. Her looks, her body, her b.o., her choice of sexual partners even. I don’t remember what the insults were, but I highly doubt they were all that original or creative. Nonetheless, it was quite painful to watch this girl get bullied. She was clearly outnumbered and ostracized.

WT girl kept talking about “beating” her up and “kicking her ass”, classy comments like that. So the big day arrives and the two of them faces off in front of a large crowd of people. I was one of the onlookers. Even before WT and A girl started anything, A girl starts crying hysterically and says brokenly that her mother told her that she shouldn’t fight because it wasn’t the Christian way. That Christians don’t fight and aren’t violent. I swear, I’m not making this up. So WT girl goes up to her and pushes her around, roughs her up a bit, but almost uncertainly and half-heartedly. All the while, A girl has her face buried in her hands and she was crying, but she didn’t hit back.

I guess I’m relating this story now to illustrate two things. One, I’m a big wimp. I didn’t try to stick up for her at any point in the game. Granted, she wasn’t my friend and I had no real obligation to, but I did think it was wrong that everyone picked on her. I guess WT girls had a lot of WT friends. Anyway, the mob effect can be kind of scary and for a 12 or 13-year old kid, I wasn’t looking to join the party and get some nasty blows coming my way.

Secondly, I think ever since then, I developed a protective shell of my own. Although this incident had really nothing to do with me, I experienced it somewhat vicariously and I was always scared to think about what if I had been that A girl and I had to be bullied or pushed around by a whole mob of angry, overly hormonal teenage girls? Case in point, back in elementary school I was quite a tough little cookie. I got into fights with kids before, mainly because it was like a knee jerk reaction. You don’t like what someone said? Just push them. Pretty soon I earned the reputation, well undeserved, of being “the one you don’t mess with.” But that was after all elementary school. Then the small fish graduates to go to a bigger pond and there, she sees all these scary ass big and tough people that she doesn’t want to mess with either. Then she realizes that she is a small fish after all and contented herself to floating quietly in the background, to avoid the predators. I am now that fish.

Ah yes...updates...

Yesterday was a highly satisfying day. I saw the culmination of a few years’ of hard work and intense innard knotting. I have to thank many people who helped me get to this point in my life and truly, I consider myself a lucky lucky girl.

Last night I made the very deadly mistake of rubbing toothpaste on an emerging pimple in the effort to dry it out faster. However, I compounded on that mistake by putting a band-aid on it and then going to sleep. It became a sauna and hotbed for the pimply virus all night and this morning, I woke up to a grossly mishapened face. I was all hot and panicky as I tried to mold my face back to the way it was before. Then I had the brilliant idea of pressing ice on it to make the swelling go down. As I’m writing this, my face has thankfully resumed its erstwhile shape but I now have a big ugly flaming red something or another in the vicinity of the pimple. I’ve even taken ibuprofen to tame the reaction. The score at this point: Emily 1, Pimple 4. But the war will go on.